Lois Brown

This fall, the African American Studies Program hired its first core faculty members. They include Kali Nicole Gross, professor of African American studies, and Khalil Anthony Johnson Jr., assistant professor of African American studies. Wesleyan opened the Afro American Institute in 1969 and offered minimal courses on African American history. In 1983, students could major in African American studies, but it wasn’t until 2008 that the university created the African American Studies Program. Now the program is poised to make institutional history by African American Studies gaining departmental status, which would put Wesleyan on par with other top-tier universities and colleges.…

The summer of 1964 saw thousands of young people — many from colleges and universities in the North - mobilize to register voters, educate citizens, and support other civil rights work in the Jim Crow South. What came to be known as "Freedom Summer" is credited with ending the isolation of states where racial repression and discrimination was largely ignored by news media and politicians, despite the the landmark Civil Rights Act passed that July. Wesleyan students joined the struggle. "Five Wesmen to Fight Voter Discrimination in Mississippi," said a front-page headline in the Argus. That May, Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. had given…

Lois Brown, the Class of 1958 Distinguished Professor of African American Studies and English, will be the featured speaker at the annual “Giving Voice” program to benefit the Royall House and Slave Quarters from 3 to 5 p.m. June 8 on the museum grounds at 15 George St. in Medford, Mass. The title of Brown’s talk — “Marked with the furrows of time: Belinda, the Royalls and Accounts of Freedom” — refers to the 18th century petition of Belinda, a woman enslaved for more than 50 years by the Royall family, for financial support in post-Revolutionary Massachusetts. “As her commentary in…

To commemorate the 150th anniversary of the Emancipation Proclamation, the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History hosted the National Youth Summit on Abolition on Feb. 11. Lois Brown, the Class of 1958 Distinguished Professor of African American Studies and English, joined a team of experts, scholars and activists in a moderated panel discussion to reflect upon the abolition movement of the 19th century and explore its legacy on modern-day slavery and human trafficking. The event was webcast live to more than 2,000 students and adults from 31 states and to schools in Kenya, Pakistan and the Republic of Suriname in…

The Wesleyan Board of Trustees recently awarded tenure to two faculty members. They are: Lois Brown, professor of African American studies, professor of English, came to Wesleyan last fall from Mount Holyoke College where she was Elizabeth Small Professor of English. At Mount Holyoke, where she began teaching in 1998, she was awarded the Distinguished Teaching Award in 2004, and was director of the Weissman Center for Leadership and the Liberal Arts for five years. A literary historian, she focuses on culture, identity, race and gender in 18th and 19th century African American writing. She is author of three books…

AFAM Program Welcomes Its First Core Faculty

“Freedom Summer” Commemoration to Feature Concert, Speakers

Historian Brown to Speak at Medford’s Royall House

Brown Panelist at National Youth Summit on Abolition

Trustees Award Brown, Leidy with Tenure